I’m pretty damn lucky in many areas of my life: I have relatively easy and uncomplicated access to Nathan’s hot dogs (reach out for sponsorship opportunities, Nathan’s, it’ll be worth it), I have a lovely family, the considerable status that comes with (currently non-running) Changli ownership, I just repaired the cassette drive for my Commodore PET, and so far I have yet to be accused of or even remotely linked to the practice of slaughtering of horses for human consumption. I’m a lucky guy! And I’d add to that the fact that every now and then I get to judge a 24 Hours of Lemons race.
Yes, the 24 Hours of Lemons! For an incredible 20 years now, people with $500 to blow on some shitbox and a nearly-clinical lack of good sense have been able to enjoy some genuine wheel-to-wheel track racing along with a good helping of stupidity, which is the bit that I occasionally help provide.
As you may recall, I was just a judge at the race at Carolina Motorsports Park, where I excitedly and triumphantly drove my Citroën 2CV the three-or-so hours from my house to the track. I was delighted I made it for many reasons, not the least of which was the chance to be surrounded by all the usual Lemons lunacy, so let’s take a look at some of what was going on.
First, let’s get a little look at some of the cars that showed up for the race (there were 96 teams total!). Here some of them are, getting ready to run some practice laps before the main event:
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As you can see, there’s a lot of fantastic cars there; the Toyota Yaris dressed up like Gary the snail from the Spongebob Squarepants series of operettas was especially popular among the kids who showed up to spectate and, perhaps illegally, race.
Before I get into showing some automotive highlights of the event, it’s worth noting that I was there to judge. That means when drivers got black flag-able penalties, they were sent to my fellow judges and me to get stern talkings-to, and, after three black flags, penalties.
Stupid, time-wasting penalties, ideally. Penalties like one of my favorites, the Typewritten Letter of Apology one, where I drag this archaic manual typewriter to the track and then make misbehaving racers type, laboriously, sincere letters of apology to the race officials begging forgiveness for the foolish things they’ve done:
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I’d like to not that this driver was, compared to my advanced age, a kid, and had never really encountered a manual typewriter before. He adapted shockingly quickly, dramatically increasing his typing speed after just a few paragraphs in.
Another fun penalty is the Bob Ross penalty, where we make errant drivers paint landscapes on their car; I modified it this time to be more of an Art Forgery penalty, making drivers attempt to duplicate this lovely drawing of a Firebird and Monte Carlo some participants found in a junkyard, under a tire. This artwork:
…and here’s the erstwhile artist making his forgery attempt:
The result was, let’s say, unconvincing. The style was more like what Pissaro would have painted, had he painted almost immediately after being hit square in the face with a 2×4, then force-imbibed about three liters of vermouth.
I also did a penalty where I made a team run 120V through a pickle to make it glow (it actually works!) but I don’t have the video of that just yet. I’m sure there will be a video on the Lemons site soon, though.
Let’s look at some cars!
I’ll start with one of my favorites: this cut-down Toyota Previa, with its mid-mounted inline-four replaced with an absurdly large Chevy V8. I don’t think this did especially well at the race, but it was impressive as hell, in a technically absurd way.
Look how well they crammed this thing in there! And the size of those hoses!
Another treat was this AMC Gremlin, also now with V8 power and, more importantly, what appears to be genuine Muppet fur. I think it’s supposed to be the Lorax, but it feels Muppety to me. It rained for a while and boy does that fur get gross in the rain.
Here;s another look at Gary the snail. This Yaris was quick on the track! I think it came pretty close to winning class C? I was impressed. It raced clean and stayed on the track pretty much the whole time.
This little Plymouth Horizon was one of my favorite cars at the race; it was such a clean and straight little car, and I just hadn’t seen a running Horizon in, what, decades? Also, I loved this detail about the rear wing; can you tell what it is?
That wing was once the top of the dashboard! You can see the defogger outlets!
This Thunderbird was an ex-grandma car. It had a good, clean race, grandma would be proud.
Look at this early ’80s Celica! I always liked these, with their pop-forward headlights, thankfully intact here. Also, it looks a bit like this one may have an inch or so of lift? That’s an interesting choice.
There were a couple of cars that had that sort of Sharpie-drawn aesthetic for their livery. The look on this Honda I think worked quite well.
I sent this one to David, knowing his love of XJ Cherokees. This one is even a rare two-door Cherokee, and it performed quite well out there on the track, only coming into the penalty area after its power steering pump puked its guts out and made the Jeep hard to control.
This Chrysler Crossfire looked great, and their team really brought it when it came to theme, with silver clad people dancing to what seemed to be loud AI-generated disco music with lyrics about bribing Lemons Judges, one of the only applications of AI I can easily defend.
Oh, look at the stunning 1970 Mustang one of my co-judges brought. This thing was lovely, and I really appreciate the wheel choice there.
Oh look at that. A cock pic.
I really appreciate the painted-on headlamps that this team added to their Miata. Painting lights is not easy! It’s a complex interplay of light and dark, and I think the artist did a fantastic job here.
Oh, speaking of paint, my stencil actually seemed to work okay! It’s still in the big bin of judge stuff, so maybe it’ll show up at another race?
There’s so many more teams worthy of mentioning, but I’ll have to stop here for the moment.
Just take this as a reminder that the 24 Hours of Lemons is a truly wonderful institution, and if you ever get the opportunity to race or, even better, start a team of your own, take that opportunity. It’s worth it, no question.
And if I’m a judge at a race you show up at, I promise to make you do something stupid.
After reading last week’s article about the Lemons race in SC, I had some many unanswered questions about the 2CV getting there.
Normals would take 85 to 77 and be there in 3-4 hours. I truly hope Jason didn’t take the direct route as 80 mph is normal on these roads. I’m not sure strapping a rocket to the rear of the 2CV would allow it to go that fast.
This looks like an absolute hoot.
I LOVE the penalties. Do they still do People’s Curse? I was on the team unfortunately voted to have our Mercedes 300D gulp ball bearings, soap, sausage and other fun stuff into its crankcase back in 2008. And it kept going!
They retired the People’s Curse in 2011. I was at the last race to feature it, at Oregon Raceway Park, where the overwhelming majority of teams voted to destroy a photocopier that had been brought along as part of an Office Space theme rather than destroy someone’s car.
Technically the organizers can still claim cars but this has only happened officially twice (perhaps actually thrice?) in twenty years and for at least one (two?) of these instances they never bothered to follow through with collecting the car and may, in fact, have completely forgotten about one of the occurrences. Jay Lamm is on record as stating that he really, really doesn’t want any of these cars and doesn’t want to be compelled by circumstances into taking such an action.
Do batteries for the Changli count as a bribe? Ideally ones that don’t need to be chainsawed out? Asking for a friend.
No, I imagine Jason is only interested in OEM batteries or equivalent.
But, the OEM batteries were garbage! A set of LiFePO4 trolling motor batteries would be lighter, offer snappier acceleration and double the range. And reduce the risk of an unexpected acid wash. Just saying.
Post firmly tongue in cheek.
Would they be backward-compatible with his current chainsaw?
We’re making chainsaws obsolete! No more chainsaws needed for our homeboy Torch! Except for cutting trees. I heard he has some of those that need to be cut down to size every now and again. Did I mention those batteries will do a wonderful job of powering that saw with an inverter?
Interesting. I’ve never seen “not” as a verb. I’ve seen knot verb. I’ve seen not noun. But I’ve never seen not verb.
Your analysis is notted.
As a verb it’s an archaic alternative spelling of “note” as well as its own verb meaning to cut short a person’s hair. From context I’m somewhat, but only somewhat, inclined towards the former interpretation.
Heavy? Pah! That typewriter is tiny! I learned to type on a late 20s Imperial desktop machine (yes, I *do* occasionally break keyboards because of this). Now that thing was heavy.
Do I even want to know why Jason read, or at least stumbled upon https://avmajournals.avma.org/view/journals/ajvr/84/3/ajvr.22.10.0185.xml?
No I don’t.
I really like that Prelude
Aaaand that’s a block from MSN. Torch’s streak continues.
Here comes the judge, here comes the judge.
Always a treat to have Torch judge a race!
Even if that means I’m occasionally subject to some of the penalties…
That and the videos of cats working fastfood or construction that always end up in fights. All other uses of AI can get bent but those I’ll accept.
I would also accept if AI could fix the traffic light timing
Large language model type AI replacing things that were already done by a computer algorithm is the one legit use case.
Now it has to be a custom model trained for the task at hand, not just plugging grok into a traffic light.
You mean Grok hacking the Flock cameras to figure out who is driving and let the rich through while shortening the yellow for us proles isn’t a good thing?
I don’t know what’s more diabolical, the typewriter penalty or the article that discusses eating horsemeat.
It’s from 2023, it was a different time.
That “Sharpie Drawn” car is a Futurama reference!
MOVE YOUR FREAKING HOOF, YOU GOAT!
To shreds you say?
That ’70 Mustang is centerfold worthy.
You people are effin idiots. Seriously stupid.
When will this series come to Canada?
Asking for a friend.
I’m sad there’s not one in the UK either :/
Id be happy if itd come to indiana, we have a few road courses here thatd be great to run this at.
I suppose it’s grassroots, so the answer to our pleas is to Be The Grass, innit? I’m too poor even for shitbox racing, sadly. :/
Arent we all.
We do have some dirt courses out here too.
I was at Lemons in New Hampshire a couple of years ago and came across a 914 with an SBC and Hewland transaxle. Pretty sure the transaxle alone blew the $500 max to shit. That’s when I realized the $500 had become a concept more than a rule.
The required safety gear alone makes the $500 untenable, also sourcing anything that can move on it’s own is far more than $500 in these modern times.
When Lemons debuted, I was very interested in competing, not having $10K to spend on a custom roll cage, fire suppression, helmets for a crew and racing suits means it’s just another expensive hobby I can only watch from afar.
Many, if not most, teams are always looking for additional drivers and racing gear can be rented if you’re looking for a lower-cost way of giving it a try.
Racing gear also can be shared between drivers but most teams quickly discover that this isn’t as great in practice as it sounds in theory (and it doesn’t sound all that great in theory, either).
As long as you aren’t in any danger of winning anything, no one really cares how much money you spend on the car.
You are allowed to sell things off the car and add the money to your budget, which sometimes accounts for the discrepancies.
I understand that but still think the $500 figure is aspirational at times.
Forgery penalty— wait, they had to change the Firebird into a Camaro?
Bribed stencil— I couldn’t have imagined it, but that is the angriest 2CV I’ve ever seen.
“…this lovely drawing of a Camaro and Monte Carlo…”
Not a Camaro. It’s a Pontiac Firebird.
Start typing. 🙂
crap. I fixed it. I knew that, jeez!
We better see some happy little clouds with Gonzo in your next post!
At least he didn’t post this article on a Pthursday.
Is the price limit for Lemons still just $500? At some point inflation has to be acknowledged doesn’t it?
I was gonna say. I don’t see how any of these cars could have been bought for $500.
Exactly! Maybe 20 years ago, but then again, I hear the judges are Bribed.
But the bribes are still limited to $500.
It all makes sense now!
There’s not really a hard price limit. $500 is more of a guideline than a rule. Safety gear (cage, fire suppression) and stuff that makes your car safe to drive (like brakes) don’t count. Anything you rip off the car and sell can be deducted.
But the judges’ opinion/determination/bribe is the final, non-negotiable verdict. If they like what you brought or built, your presentation is good, or you provide an appropriate and creative “gift” (bribe), they’ll let a lot slide. Or if you bring a car that clearly has a bunch of go-fast parts added at great expense, they’ll slap you with so many penalty laps you’ll never catch up no matter how fast you are.
The point of LeMons is fun, creativity, and comraderie. It’s entertainment and a party far more than a race. The real winner of a LeMons race is not the one that crosses the finish line first. It’s the one that does the most with the least. Serious Racers™ should stay home or go run with some other organization that puts a bigger priority on things like “winning” or “finishing”.
Well said, doing the most with the least is their motto. How else did our 1985 Peugeot 505 win!
I incurred the Bob Ross penalty several years ago and painted a happy little Yaris passing under yellow.
Torch, given your love of archaic technology and introducing it the the younger generation as a penalty, have you considered wiring up a rotary phone hooked up to a monitor (via a complicated program you’d have to write) to make them send a multi tap text apology? It seems up your alley in terms of overcomplication for you to set it up, and matching frustration for the competitors
Torch, you really need to get to work on this. I love the idea of the offending driver having to text an apology to the judges via a rotoray phone!
Holy crap, you are E.V.I.L.
Thanks, I try
You mean 33.888.444.555
We have a 9.444.66.66.33.777!
How do people say the name of this race? Is it like a regular lemon or do you put a little French on it?
For the racing series and the rally it’s pronounced “lemons.” For the Concours d’Lemons the guy in charge, Alan Galbraith, insists on pronouncing it as pseudo-French in recognition of the fact that nobody else wants to pronounce it that way.
How flapjacking long is that letter?? 😀
Also if they make a typo do they need to start over? Because that would be equal parts maddening for them and immensely amusing for those who are not them.
Maybe you can find some vintage Liquid Paper
I sniffed all the new old stock I could find. There’s nothing left.
A few years ago I led a geology field trip which happened to go near this sculpture:
https://live.staticflickr.com/3405/3663781004_9abae267d7_c.jpg
None of the students had any idea what it was.
Clearly a pizza cutter 😉
I love the make young people do something old but also the transverse and make old people do something young.Like have Torch send a text with a Emoji
Torch is a past (passed?) master of the poo emoji.
Combine old and new tech, and have people create ASCII art versions of emoji on the typewriter.